President Ma Ying-jeou on Monday marked the 16th anniversary of a devastating earthquake by speaking about the importance of preventive evacuations.
The 7.3-magnitude quake which hit Taiwan on September 21, 1999 left more than 2,400 dead and about 11,000 injured.
The government enacted a disaster prevention law one year later and designated September 21st as National Disaster Prevention Day.
This year, President Ma spoke about how preventive evacuations are an important part of disaster prevention. He said they are crucial to minimizing damage, and helped prevent an even higher death toll when Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan in 2009, killing nearly 700.
“At that time, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau under the agriculture council had already trained 1,300 disaster prevention specialists throughout Taiwan," said Ma.
"They convinced nearly 9,000 people to evacuate [from their homes]," he said. "Had they not been evacuated, as many as 1,046 more people could have been killed.”
Ma says that preventive evacuations have helped Taiwan avoid major disasters over the past six years.